McNally plans to better handle blight, planning, jobs for Youngstown

Voters will go to the polls May 7 to elect the democrat candidate for mayor of Youngstown. The News Outlet brings you an interview with each of the candidates. This is the second in our series. Candidate John McNally IV shares his plans for the city with News Outlet reporter Andrew Donofrio.

John McNally IV is vying to be the Democrat Party candidate for mayor of Youngstown. He plans to work on better city planning, tackling blight a block at a time and better communication with residents. (Andrew Donofrio/TheNewsOutlet.org)

McNally has served as city law director and Mahoning County Commissioner. He says he’s ready to hold the city’s top job.

I’ve been gearing up for this position, I think, for most of my professional life. And, actually I think I have the right temperament and the right frame of mind to move this city forward in the next four to eight years.

The mayoral hopeful says cleaning up the city is a step in the right direction.

We have to put a better, a cleaner, face on the city of Youngstown.

McNally wants to target blight one block at time rather than one home at a time, focusing his efforts on South, Belmont, Logan and Wick avenues as well as Market Street.

You’ve got to put a hammer down to prevent further blight from creeping into some areas.

He wants a committee to oversee city planning.

The work we need done requires much more than one city planner. It requires the weight of some type of organization.

On the oil and gas industry issues dividing many voters, McNally says:

These jobs are needed and we cannot turn our backs on this industry.

McNally expects the state to continue to monitor fracking, and says local government doesn’t have the manpower to oversee the industry.

I think you have to pay attention to both sides out of respect for the people who are very concerned and very anti-fracking, anti-oil and gas.

Along with city schools, McNally says he will zero in on job training for veterans and ex-offenders who are returning to the community.

Those are going to be some of the social issues that if I’m elected mayor that I’m going to try to tackle on a more serious basis than has been done in the past.

If elected, he plans to be a sounding board for his constituents.

One of the things I want to do when I’m mayor is to start something called Five Minutes with the Mayor.

One Tuesday a month he plans to …

… open up the mayor’s office and I’ll sit there as long as people want to come in and give me their five minute rant, or five minutes of praise or five minutes of suggestions.

Next, the News Outlet will sit down with candidate Tito Brown. For TheNewsOutlet.org, I’m Andrew Donofrio.